President Donald Trump was correct to say that some leftist protesters could be prosecuted for racketeering, according to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Trump has suggested that a small group of protesters who held up miniature Gaza flags and chanted "Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!" while he ate dinner at a restaurant in downtown D.C. last week could face charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
The president said one of the protesters involved was a "paid agitator."
During an appearance Tuesday night on CNN, Blanche defended Trump's comments.
"So is it, again, sheer happenstance that individuals show up at a restaurant where the president is trying to enjoy dinner in Washington, D.C., and accost him with vile words and vile anger? And meanwhile, he's simply trying to have dinner. Does it mean it's just completely random that they showed up? Maybe," Blanche told CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
"But to the extent that it's part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States, there's potential, potential investigations there."
Collins asked Blanche whether the protesters were inflicting "harm or terror or damage" by shouting at Trump.
"I mean, honestly, so you're asking whether there's damage done by four individuals screaming and yelling at the president of our United States while he's trying to have dinner?" the deputy AG said. "That can't be a serious question."
Blanche added that RICO is "available to all kinds of organizations committing crimes and committing wrongful acts, not just organized crime or ISIS or terror organizations."
"There's nothing wrong with peaceful protest, and nobody has ever said so," he told Collins. "Of all the people in this country, President Trump knows exactly what it's like to have people protest against him.
"But what he's talking about and what the administration is talking about is organized efforts by individuals who are not present at the protest, but they're funding these protests, and they're not protests, they're inflicting damage and harm."
Trump on Sept. 9 had dinner at a seafood restaurant near the White House, promoting his deployment of the National Guard and federalizing the police force in an effort to crack down on crime in the nation's capital.
Cheers were heard as the president stepped from his limo — though there was also a smattering of boos and chants from protesters opposing U.S. policy in support of Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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